Bill Ryan's Other Blog

One more week to go before Christmas holiday break.  Next weekend is going to be a busy one, especially since we’re probably going to head down to see one of my best friends and his family.  3 days in Florida is hardly enough, but that just means we’ll have an excuse to go back down.

I’m feeling a little anxious tonight and b/c we were busy all day, I didn’t get to take my Sunday run.  That’s where I’m heading now.  I’m a long way from being the marathon runner I was 10 years ago, but I”m on track to get back to my former greatness.  Breaking my leg sucked.  But I used it an an excuse to be a bum and let myself get really out of shape (fat).  Since I’ve been running again, I’m slowly gaining my life back and I’m loving every second of it.

Two things were absolutely essential to my comeback.  Prior to breaking my leg, my weight stayed in the 160-185 range, and although I had a few bouts of breaking 200lbs, they didn’t last long.  After the break though I got better at making excuses and rationalizations than I did at getting results.  I’d get on track for a little while, take off 20 lbs or so, then put it back on.  My weight was a freaking yoyo for the last 9 years and I got as heavy as 280 (saying it publicly is probably the best way I know of to make sure I don’t go back there).  This time though, things were different.  The first thing was the Warrior Diet.  I’ve been reading Doug’s blog for a couple of years now, and he’s a health fanatic.  (He was also born in 1971, which brought home that my weight problem was self-induced 100%).  I came across his blog a while ago b/c he had some posts about being in Greenville and I immediately became addicted.  He’s a former cop and former Army member and while he was doing quite well for himself, decided to go back and volunteer to serve his country.  His blog focuses on philosophy/books, military strategy, health and politics.  I ignored the fitness stuff at first, but he was adamant about the Warrior Diet and the more I read about it, the more I wanted to try it.  All I can say is, it works.  If you have any interest in health/fitness I highly encourage you to read Doug’s blog.  Even if you don’t care about fitness, you should read it anyway, b/c he’s very smart, very well read and just all around cool (I’ll stop now lest it look like I have a man-crush    )

The Warrior Diet helped me lose enough weight that I could safely start running again.  The Couch to 5k program was a decent enough starting point.  I’ve been able to make pretty quick progress though so my increases aren’t typical [I’ll explain why I mention this in a second].  The biggest problem I was facing is that I was tempted to overdo things and that is the best way to injure yourself, or at least get you so sore you miss days.  The Couch to 5k program reminds you of this reality and emphasizes that you shouldn’t try to beat the program – just stick with it at first until your body is acclimated. 

Everyone motivates themselves differently and the main thing is that you find what entices you and use it to get you to take action.  I’ve read repeatedly that it takes about 3 weeks for you to take on a habit (that works both ways for good and bad habits alike).  The longer you engage in something the stronger the habituation.  One thing though that you should be cognizant of is homeostasis.  Basically, it’s a notion that you body likes to keep things steady.  Any big change makes your body ambivalent and there will be a strong tendency to go back to where things started.  I’ve read this various places and not sure how scientifically sound either of them are, but personally, I believe both numbers are pretty accurate (and yes, I ‘m fully aware that placebo effect may be in effect (pardon the terrible pun) here.  If I believe the numbers are real, I’ll convince myself they are.  Who knows).  Anyway, whether you believe those numbers or not, there is some point at which doing something becomes a habit.  There is also a point at which new things will face some resistance.  So keep both numbers in mind – the latter one is particularly pernicious if you’re not careful.

The second item that I used to help me with motivation was a Garmin 305.

It’s a GPS watch with a heart monitor.  So as you start to run, you turn it on.  It tracks your heart rate as you run and at the end, it lets you update your data to a computer where you can plot it.  The results can be plotted, tracked or whatever the hell you want:

This is very useful for me personally b/c seeing the short line at first was a big motivation for me.  I’m rather competitive (too much so many times) so seeing a small little blip at the beginning was a huge motivator.  Running was my big passion in life and I’ve been much happier since I started running again.  Although I tried doing elliptical machines and stair masters, I’m too easily distracted.  I’m disciplined enough to force myself on the machine, but it was boring and it wasn’t hard to talk myself out of getting on the thing in the first place.  After all, I could always rationalize things by convincing myself I had work to do.  In my line of work, there’s always more work to do, more books to read or brand new technologies to learn.  Running is perfect for people like me b/c you can convince yourself of anything, once you’ve run somewhere, the only way to get back and attend to those pressing issues is to hurry up and run back.  You can walk, but you’ll never get home.  It’s perfect.

So the Garming 305 is a great partner. It’s techy.  It’s effective. And b/c you have data to work with and analyze, it caters to math geeks and tech geeks alike (God knows I’m neither of those right   ).  So now, having a Wifi Hotspot in my car and a permanent netbook in it, I’ve got the perfect setup. I head over to the YMCA to begin my run. I run, I run and I run. Depending on my mood and time of day, I’ll hit the gym afterward for some quick weight lifting.  And then I sync my watch to my netbook, and stare the the chart.  The main things I look for are the red lines getting longer, my heart rate doing down, or my time getting shorter for the same distance.  Right now though, I’m obsessed with making the lines longer.

The only problem is that the charting software doesn’t have a web interface.  It’d be nice to automatically post the data to one’s web site.  It’s an ego thing, but more than that, it’s cool to have data to track.  Other people write frequently asking me how I got started again and most runners that blog have the same experience.  So being able to post the data helps out (besides, the uber tech aspect of it makes it cool).  I already wrote a program for my Andriod that lets me upload GPS records to the web, but all it gives you is distance.  The Garmin data is much more detailed.  Now that I’m back to the Windows Mobile World (I can’t thank Andrea enough for the hook up.  The HTC Tilt 2 she sent me rules), I can use the GPS in it to write a program that’ll automatically upload it via a Bot (tentatively named the RUNBot).

None of it compares to the Garmin data though. The Tilt 2 can give you an approximate speed, but it’s not as granular as the Garmin.  Thanks to Bing Maps, I think I’m pretty close to being able to plot correctly.  I’m guessing that there are enough other runners out there with Garmins who would like to post there runs to the web, so I think a WCF service and a Bing Map Control is in the works over the holidays.

You’ll know I finished writing it when my runs are listed up here.  In the meantime, I’ve got to use the standard interface.  I’m running again, and doing much better than I ever expected.  It’ll still be a while before I’m biting off marathons again, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Andy L and anyone else using a Garmin – if you are interested in a web interface, drop me a line.  I’ve got most of the Bing stuff done and working – I just need to finish up the WCF Service.  I’d love to chat though to see what features you’d want – looks like it might make a great CodePlex project (or something I’ll give away for anyone that sends me their first 50 miles – or something that’ll be a motivator).

Enough typing – time to run.

[tags] Garmin GPS, Garmin Forerunner, Garmin 305, Bing Maps, Warrior Diet, Running[/tags]